This past Thursday, a neat black fountain pen arrived at my door, courtesy of someone who wanted my money more than he wanted the pen. I don’t suppose this scenario is unusual, given that the person in question was offering the pen to the highest bidder on eBay. The pen, on the other hand, is decidedly unusual, and I haven’t a clue what it is.
No, that’s not entirely true. I do know that the pen is branded WATERMANS on its clip and that its barrel bears the legend MADE IN ITALY. Overall size is similar to that of an Aero-metric Parker “51” Slender. And perhaps the most telling clue is that the pen uses C/F cartridges (or a Lady converter, which also fits the C/F as well as the Lady). The Italian provenance is the real stumper for me, as I’m not aware that Waterman made pens in Italy.
That’s enough gabble. Here’s the pen, fitted with a converter:
No, it’s not some sort of funky Parker “51”, but that “51”-style hooded nib really is interesting, isn’t it! Upon disassembling the pen, I found that the nib isn’t a real tubular nib. It’s an ordinary Bock steel nib, imprinted with the goat and everything, mated with an ordinary cartridge/converter-type hard rubber feed. The end of the feed is contoured to fit into the profile under the nib. Like the shell on a Parker “21” Mark I, this pen’s shell plays no part in the ink delivery system.
The body and cap are molded plastic, and they’re well engineered. The whole pen exhibits good design, even in the face of the furniture’s thin plating, which has already begun to wear off despite the fact that the pen was NOS when it arrived.
So, umm, what the dickens is this thing? When was it made? Does it have a model name?
Next puzzle. At about the same time I dropped my bid on that Waterman, I also dropped a bid on a John Holland ringtop. Nowadays nobody cares much about ringtops, so even though it was a very nice pen the Holland didn’t draw a lot of interest from the punters. On the other hand, this punter, the one writing here, was very interested indeed. Look at the pen and see if you can tell why it interests me, before I give it away.
Okay, so it’s a pen. What’s so cool about it?
It’s NOS. Never inked. Original ribbed sac (desiccated, of course, and since replaced). Perfect color, no wear on the chasing. That’ all well and good, but the real reason I plumped for this one is that it’s a hatchet filler. I didn’t have one until this week, and my collection had built up a serious jones for one. Problem solved as of Thursday.
This Lagavulin 16 is getting to taste really good. Time to go make myself a cheddar-and-asparagus omelet. And one for the Managing Partner, too. More anon.